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Last week was Halloween, so I done got m’self all costumed up (as The Rotten Tooth Fairy, pictures below) and attempted to win an iPad for best costume at the work party. I did not win, but I think I looked pretty rad nonetheless. Here is a bathroom shot of my costume.

Someone described me as looking like a “chubby steampunk bounty hunter”, which I thought was an EXCELLENT description of my costume. I will break it down for you.

Number 1 is a bowler hat that I put a temporary band on. Then I printed the letters T O O T H and watercolored the paper so it looked aged. I put those letters on wires and hit the letters with some gold for added ping.

Number 2 is a necklace I strung with molars I made out of polymer clay for extra creepitude. Those were a big hit wherever I went.

Number 3 are antique dental instruments I bought on eBay. There are two pick-things jammed in my waistband, but the best one were the pliers that hung from my belt. The pliers are cupped inside so as to better grab at your toofers.

The work gathering was delightful. I always like to be reminded that I work with creative people, and that was in full force. Here’s S. being a Na’avi from Avatar. You can’t appreciate it, but his puffy white things have LEDs in them and they light up.

Here’s a timely costume – a bedbug. I think the eyelashes really make it.

Also timely, a Chilean miner.

Dead Marie Antoinette.

P. was a superhero, and he made a sign that said “POW” that you held next to your head while he pretended to punch you. I thought that was a genius costume. He now has, like, thirty shots with people making their best “punched in the jaw by a superhero” face. Here’s mine. I look like I’m being abducted by aliens, but I’ve never been punched in the face before by anyone, so I was woefully inexperienced.

My favorite costume of the day was the “Wrecked Fung Wah Bus”. The Fung Wah bus is a bus that goes from Chinatown in New York to Boston. It’s about $30.00, so in that respect it’s great. It’s not so great that the bus crashes from time to time. I am definitely biased because Chuck Norris the Oversized Pomeranian was part of the costume and I love that damn dog so much. He puts up with everything. He’s not bothered by this weirdness at all.

Someone else was a great New York Times crossword puzzle.

And this is my lovely co-worker Börkke going as the personification of the song, “Once, Twice, Three Times a Lady”. She borrowed my t-shirt with the speaker in the front and I programmed it to play the song. Rather shnazzy.

They announced the winners, and I didn’t place, but I was totally okay with that because the other costumes kicked so much butt. Dead Marie Antoinette got first place and an iPad, Wrecked Fung Wah Bus got second (go Chuck Norris!) and Avatar got third.

The next night, I went to my annual Riedel Dance Company Halloween Fundraiser Dance Thing. As always, it was delightful. JR and his wife went as a band called GRAPHIC INTENSITY. They insisted that the band’s name be typed in caps.

There was line dancing.

And someone was there as Paul the Octopus, the semi-famous octopus who picked the winning teams for the World Cup.

And this was the costumed Paul the Octopus. He had a nametag with Paul on it and a soccer ball to complete his look.

Has everyone seen the video of the Red-Shirt-Guy at Blizzcon asking a question about World of Warcraft? If you haven’t, you should.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwyMB19q7ms

Now, armed with that knowledge, I want you to imagine me cornering Paul the Octopus Costume Guy and saying in Red Shirt Guy’s voice:

“I like it, but it would have been easier to identify you as a cephalopod if you had painted chromatophores on your costume. Chromatophores are the cells in the skin of the octopus that allow it to change color and texture. Individual colored areas in the cell swell and shrink depending on the color the octopus is trying to mimic, like a TV screen.”

BECAUSE THAT’S PRECISELY WHAT I DID. I felt so bad for him. He was nice about it and everything, but I still feel like a complete dweeb.

When I got back to White Plains on the last Metro-North train, I wasn’t tired at all, so I trundled off in costume to the diner at 3:00 a.m., where I was accosted by what I like to call Whore-loween (girls, you have beautiful bodies, but for the love of Pete, PUT SOME PANTS ON), and it was loud. These broads were noisy and sloppy-drunk and made it very difficult for me to listen to my iPod and eat my sandwich. There was a lot of “You’re dead to me!” and “I can’t believe you!” and “Fuhget her, she’s a total skank!” and various other statements I can’t write here due to the coarse language. And then I went home and went to sleep while the sun came up. A delightful Halloween all around.

Remember last year, when I made all those drawings for those boards? Well, that meeting came around again this year, and Publicis wanted it BIGGER! and BETTER! this year, which is fine. The only problem is that last year I just made the drawings and other graphic designers assembled the imagery, and this year it was just me, working alone. For the meeting, the boss-folk wanted a giant wall, 32 feet long and 8 feet tall, covered with stats and facts about Publicis in 2009. I originally designed it with chunks of information scattered all over it with tasteful white space between each fact, but I was told by the big-whigs that they pretty much wanted no white space at all. None. “Okay,” I said. “If that’s what you want, that’s what I’m gonna give you. I’ll cram so much stuff in there, you won’t be able to walk straight.” And the final product looked like this:

I was true to my word. And not to toot my own horn, but it was a big hit. All the execs loved it, the attendees loved it, it’s being printed and hung in other offices around the country, etc. This is what it looked like in the meeting room.

That wasn’t the only thing I worked on for this meeting, oh no. That was just the biggest thing. There was the presentation itself, for which I made the slides. There were the gift bags, for which my mother and I sat all Saturday making labels and cutting ribbons like Victorian factory workers. And then there was the nametags.

Each person got one, and it was shaped like a conversation bubble. I cut out about sixty of them. For your own personal information, I would like you to know that when you cut out cardstock with an X-acto knife for seven hours in a row, your index finger looks like this:

But the meeting is over, it went smashingly, everyone was well pleased, and I don’t have to think about it until next year. Hoo-ray.